Science Library Pad

Province of Ontario - no sign of open data portal

Open Data London asked whether there was any news about the Province of Ontario open data portal and when it might be coming.  The response of "nothing new to report" doesn't bode well; not clear if it will launch in 2012 or ever.

@OpenDataLondon Thanks for connecting - nothing new to report. #OpenData

— Media Office (@LibPressSec) May 29, 2012

UPDATE: This is odd because they appeared to have hired a project manager and to have a running project last year, as I posted in November 2011: short update on Ontario Open Data Portal.

At the time there was a Ministry of Research and Innovation (with Minister Glen Murray @glen4tc) but that is now part of the Ministry of Economic Development and Brad Duguid (@BradDuguid) is the Minister. ENDUPDATE

Both British Columbia and Quebec now have provincial open data portals.

Province of Quebec open data portal and IT dashboard

On June 28, 2012 the Province of Quebec launched its open data portal donnees.gouv.qc.ca

It looks pretty good although it has no developer outreach or engagement section.  I think all open data sites should have a /developer page as that is a key group of users.

The province also released an IT dashboard, which tracks progress and expenditures on its information technology projects.  http://www.tableaudebordprojetsri.gouv.qc.ca/

This kind of tool can have a big impact on decisionmaking, in particular it can help to expose which projects should have their scope reduced or be eliminated altogether.

The release of these two sites meets the commitments laid out in Quebec's open government report, the Gautrin report.

Le portail www.données.gouv.qc.ca sera mis en place dès juin et les données y seront publiées progressivement.

En juin, un tableau de bord sur l'état de santé des projets informatiques sera diffusé dans le portail des données ouvertes.

See my May 2012 post Government of Quebec open data and open government - the Gautrin Report for more information about other recommendations including a coming public consultation site.

UK rail real-time open data

Via a chain of tweets I find that there is now real-time data for UK rail

UK tweeps, do you know @opentraintimes? Real-time info using #opendata will save you from British railway's mess! awe.sm/lpxh

— Jacques (@jacksometer) June 29, 2012

.@jacksometer @zugmonitor Real-time data is out there, I am busy integrating it in to the site... expect live maps very soon!

— Peter Hicks (@poggs) June 29, 2012

Network Rail announces #opendata site powered by @rockshoreltd bit.ly/Ms9yPf

— Rockshore (@rockshoreltd) June 28, 2012

There's a June 28, 2012 press release from National Rail.

Opening up: Network Rail's Transparency Programme

Software developers can download information about real time train running data feeds here: http://www.networkrail.co.uk/data-feeds/ This service is available on a pre-registration basis until 20.00 on Thursday 28^th June, and the full service will be available thereafter.

The data feeds available will be:

• Train Movements - train positioning and movement event data, including incident and delay messages
• TD - train positioning data, at signal berth level
• TSR (Temporary Speed Restrictions) – details of temporary reductions in line speeds across the rail network
• VSTP (Very Short Term Plan) – schedule records created via this process (and thus not available via CIF)
• RTPPM (Real Time Public Performance Measure) - this shows the performance of trains against the timetable, measured as the percentage of trains arriving at destination on time
• SCHEDULE – extract of train schedules from the Integrated Train Planning System

The data feeds site says

live access to feeds will be provided on a first come, first served basis, and will be restricted to a maximum of 500 users, although we may increase this if there is sufficient demand.

The data from National Rail are one piece of the puzzle of the promised UK real-time bus and train data I discussed in my April 2012 post UK national real-time train and bus open data.

UK Open Data White Paper and data.gov.uk relaunch

If you follow a lot of UK government open data people your Twitter stream may have lit up with tweets this morning (rather early in the morning, for those of us in North America).

There was a hashtagless event that combined a launch of the Open Data White Paper and Departmental Open Data Strategies

http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/open-data

with a relaunch of data.gov.uk itself.

UPDATE 2012-06-29: The OKFN blog has details on the site and the CKAN code that powers it - UK Government Releases Open Data White Paper and new Data.Gov.UK ENDUPDATE

I Storified what showed up in my Twitter stream (I can't guarantee it's full coverage, it's just what I saw from those I follow).

tell data.gc.ca how you're using government data

On the data.gc.ca site is a page where you can tell them how you've used Canadian government datasets.

data.gc.ca - Tell us how you've used Data.gc.ca datasets

Since it is otherwise quite difficult for the site to know how government data is being used, I encourage you to use this form to submit not just applications built with data.gc.ca datasets, but any analysis, visualisation or non-governmental website that uses Government of Canada data, whether from data.gc.ca itself, from another government webpage, or requested by ATIP.  They are looking at all the feedback that is submitted.

@scilib It turns out they do read the data.gc.ca app submission forms. Just got a nice response.

— LeslieYoung (@LeslieYoung) June 22, 2012

There are two other contact channels:

• Suggest a dataset
• General and Technical Enquires

Information about data use, data desired, and technical requests all help guide the requirements for the expansion and redesign of the data.gc.ca site.

As a reminder, these are the commitments in Canada's Action Plan on Open Government:

• during Year 1 [i.e. 2012] of our Action Plan, we will continue to expand on the number of datasets made available through the existing portal
• during Year 1 we will complete our requirements for the next generation platform
• in Years 2 and 3, we will design and initiate implementation of the new data.gc.ca portal
• in Years 2 and 3 we will further improve the level of standardization of data published by departments
• the Government will make use of crowdsourcing, particularly among Canada's open data community, to make sure that this new open data portal meets the needs and expectations of those who will use it most

Previously

See previous posts in category opengovca

 

Notes from Open Government: Will it be Transformative? event

The AIIM (Association for Information and Image Management) Ottawa chapter organised an event "Open Government. Will it be Transformative?".  The opening speaker covered the national Open Government Action Plan, followed by talks about the City of Ottawa's open data initiative and how open source lessons and licensing might apply to the open data world.

The Plenary speaker was Stephen Walker, Senior Director, IM Division, Treasury Board Secretariat.  He is the lead on the Open Government Action Plan.  Contact him at [email protected] or +1 (613) 946-3052.

You can find Canada's commitments to the international Open Government Partnership (OGP) at http://www.opengovpartnership.org/countries/canada

The other portal for information about Canada's open government initiatives is the site open.gc.ca

As part of membership in the OGP the Government of Canada has detailed specific initiatives in Canada's Action Plan on Open Government.  Stephen Walker emphasised that civil society has a key role to play in monitoring Canada's progress, and that in fact civil society participation is built into the OGP.  One of the key tests of the OGP will be to what extent its partner members are able to deliver on their action plan commitments next year.

Stephen Walker presented a detailed slide deck "Canada's Action Plan on Open Government" (in Canadian government style, the presentation is available in both a complete English version and a complete French version).  Hopefully it will be available online from AIIM and at open.gc.ca, otherwise you could contact him directly for a copy.

The other speakers were Rob Giggey, the City of Ottawa's lead on open data, and Thomas Prowse, an Ottawa tech lawyer with deep experience in the legal issues related to open source.

The City of Ottawa's short links to its initiatives are ottawa.ca/opendata and ottawa.ca/donneesouvertes

There is a partner civil society group (of which I am a member): Open Data Ottawa.

It was recently announced that the city will hold a second contest to develop applications, analysis and visualisations using its open data but there is no budget for prizes this time.  They are looking for sponsors to provide funding.  Contact Rob Giggey if you are interested in sponsoring.

Twitter:

• Stephen Walker @sbwalker61
• Rob Giggey @rob_giggey
• Thomas Prowse @tprowse
• Open Data Ottawa @opendataottawa
• Hashtag was #aiimyow

Here is a Storify of tweets (mostly mine) from the event.  There are many additional links embedded in the tweets.

Twitter archive from Canadian Association of Learned Journals 2012

Here is the Storify of the livetweeting from CALJ 2012.  There were also some side discussions that I will capture in another post.  The hashtag was #calj2012.  @scilib is me.